


It's a Beautiful War

by chewysugar



Series: Robin's Nest [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Damian's Death, Public Blow Jobs, Top Jason, bottom dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone thinks that death brings people together. But all Dick has ever seen of it is that it tears people apart. Yet in the wake of Damian's death, Dick finds something with Jason that just might prove his theory wrong. </p><p>Sequel to 'Nine For a Kiss, Ten For a Bird.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Beautiful War

Some time between the SAT’s and Blüdhaven, Dick came to the conclusion that beneath the cowl of the Bat and the smile of the playboy was just a void waiting to be filled.

There is no Bruce Wayne; there is no Batman.

From across the sprawling lawn, he sees Bruce laughing and drinking—or in his case, pretending to laugh and drink—with what appears to be last season’s runner-up on _America’s Next Top Model._

Dick shakes his head, and helps himself to more fruit punch. It’s easy for Bruce to lie to himself and the watching public—Bruce Wayne is, after all, just another mask.

Sometimes he worries that he’s heading that way. He, after all, wore the cowl once. But on days like today, when the sun is shining and the clouds have gone into hiding, he appreciates that he, at the very least, avoided falling into the same pitfalls as his—for want of a better term—father.

Dick Grayson lives, laughs and breathes outside of Nightwing and Robin—Bruce Wayne doesn’t know what it means to do any of those things. Except for grieve, but since grief is the language that all members of the Wayne family, adopted or otherwise, speak, Dick isn’t about to go holding that against Bruce.

This little backyard shindig, with its ostentatious decorations and who’s who of Gotham’s finest, is an attempt to keep that grief at bay. Nobody knows that Bruce Wayne lost his only real-blooded son the same night he lost another Robin, and Bruce is determined to keep it that way. The socialites, members of the press, and their dates can’t see Gotham City’s Prince teetering on the edge; that would make Bruce Wayne look dark, and dark is what people associate Batman with. Bruce has yet to take any risks, and something as trivial as Damian’s death isn’t going to make him stop now.

There’ s a paper plate of potato salad, hot dogs and tortilla chips waiting for Dick at a small circular table. Only he’s not hungry anymore. His thoughts have taken a morbid turn—they’ve been doing that a lot since the night Damian was murdered. Damian was his Robin at one point in time, and it hit him hard. Only he can’t let that show because Damian was more Bruce’s than his.

There are people waiting for Dick at his table—people he actually wants to be around. Barbara, Tim, Conner Kent…only for some reason, he can’t bring himself to go back.

It isn’t right. They should be mourning, should be silent with their heads bowed. A young life was lost, lost in the name of justice. Dick wonders if Damian even had the chance to be young—certainly he didn’t act like a regular ten-year old boy.

Dick sucks back his glass of punch, crunches the plastic cup between his fingers and decides to get some air—real air, not air rife with the mendacity and pretense displayed in the grand grounds of Wayne Manor.

Someone calls his name as he tosses his cup into the big, blue recycling bin that Alfred so thoughtfully set out; Dick ignores them. He just wants room to think, to process—something that he knows from firsthand experience Bruce has always had trouble doing.

Behind him everything is music and laughter and lies; ahead of him is the sloping driveway that he’s driven up and down more times than he can remember. Dick crunches along the gravel, undoing his short-sleeve button up at the neck. The only mercy in this whole charade of a party is that Bruce was firm on it not being black-tie—it’s only one in the afternoon and already Dick is starting to sweat from the sweltering heat.

Behind him, Wayne Manor looms like a Gothic monument to memory. It’s still home to him, because home is something he carries; home is the feeling of completeness. So perhaps it’s because he’s felt so utterly incomplete—shattered into a thousand pieces with the latest tragedy to strike his family—that he doesn’t want to be here…wants to be anywhere _other_ than here.

Dick walks down the driveway, hands tucked into his pockets. And as he walks, he hears a noise from somewhere behind the grand, iron gates—the distant, lion roar of a powerful motorcycle.

It’s familiar, and before he knows it he’s half-running to the gates, heart racing in time with the excited rush of his thoughts.

The sight of the sound—of the sleek hog, red as congealing blood—scatters the worst of his malaise. But it’s the rider that gets his pulse racing. It’s the rider that makes him open the gates and stand back with a grin on his face that even Dick knows is a little too stupidly besotted.

Jason slows his bike as he pulls onto the grounds, but he doesn’t go too far. Maybe it’s because he saw Dick; maybe it’s because he’s still hesitant to treat the grounds as his home.

Raven hair tumbles from Jason’s helmet as he pulls it over his head. He gives Dick a grin that is just purely Jason—carefree, cocky, arrogant: like a wolf waiting to devour.

“Alfred hiring you out as the doorman now, Dickybird?”

Dick matches Jason’s grin, only he knows his isn’t nearly as sure of himself. “Are you complaining? I thought you’d like a warmer welcome than the security system.”

Jason snorts. “Better than sneaking in the back way, I s’pose.” He frowns, ice blue eyes raking over Dick’s body. “Good thing I’m adhering to the dress code, huh?” Dressed in a dark denim jacket and leather pants, Jason’s the definition of cool, assured casual.

“You wouldn’t wear a tux at gunpoint.”

“Fuck no.” Jason’s eyes travel to the manor. “Somebody snaking you, Dick? Or did you just come running down here for the exercise?”

It’s Jason’s way—fear of losing people makes him push them far away. Only Dick’s not having any of it today, not when seeing Jason has been the best thing that’s happened to him in recent weeks.

“You were breaking a sound ordinance.” Dick nods at Jason’s motorcycle—he feels a wonton desire to be the leather seat between Jason’s legs. “Just thought I’d make sure you weren’t, y’know, someone really worth worrying about.”

That wolf smile graces Jason’s lips again. Dick feels the heat of the other man’s gaze rake from his lips to the skin left exposed by his undone buttons. Tickling flames of memory lap Dick’s mind; memory of taste and touch and smell. Memories of Jason beneath him on a rain-swept night when they both felt like they had nothing left and needed something to cling to.

They’ve known each other for years. They’ve walked in and around each other’s footsteps, losing their way and finding it again. They know each other now on a level that, while not entirely completely telling, ties them together through empathy.

Something in Jason’s face softens—he’s not the hunting predator wolf; he’s the brother wolf now, one part of the pack that wants nothing more than to look out for those who are lost and stumbling.

Like Dick.

Jason bites his bottom lip; Dick ignores the lust that pulls at the muscles of his abdomen.

“Wanna get outta here?” His voice is low, inviting. He’s reaching a hand out, and Dick’s going to take it, even if the irony of being saved by Jason twice over isn’t lost on him.

Dick smirks. “Fly away with you, huh?”

“I don’t have another helmet.”

“Don’t worry.” Dick swings a leg over the seat of Jason’s bike; Jason shuffles forward to accommodate, but not to put distance. Dick’s arms wrap securely around Jason’s waist; he feels Jason chuckle, a cigarettes and liquor laugh that’s as devil-may-care as it is warm.

“I ain’t going anywhere, Dickybird.” The engine roars to life, the thunder rumble splitting the silent summer afternoon. “I mean, I’ll be the last person in the world to bitch if you decide to cop a feel…”

Dick smirks; Jason’s bike speeds forward then banks to the left as he turns away from Wayne Manor.

There’s always been something about the open air and breakneck speed of being on a motorcycle that’s felt liberating to Dick. It’s why bikes are his vehicle of choice—there’s simultaneously more and less control than in a car. But there’s something about this, about racing down the road away from the fallacious façade of Wayne Manor with Jason that is far more freeing than if he was cruising on one of the many machines in Bruce’s garage.

He holds himself so close to Jason that he can rest his head against the other man’s shoulder. Jason laughs above the thrum of the engine.

They rode like this once before, back on a rainy night. But they were desperate, needing to escape together, to explore something that neither of them was quite sure of at the time.

Now they’re just riding—going off to wherever the wheels of Jason’s bike take them. Dick didn’t know how badly he needed something like this since Damian’s death

And it’s all because of Jason.

They drive for what seems like hours, until they’re well out of the limits of the county. Everything is rolling hills and coastal sights. Dick can feel the prickle of ocean air creep through his button-up, but he’s not cold. He’s too close to the warmth of Jason’s body and the powerful heat of the bike carrying them.

Jason drives into the trees over a road formed by hundreds of other off-road adventurer’s. They pass through thick groves of chestnut and maple until the scenery opens up to a wide bluff overlooking the ocean below. Dick can see clear to where the rosy sun is hiding itself behind the clouds rolling over the horizon.

The bike shakes to a stop; Jason kicks the stand, but Dick doesn’t let go.

“Comfortable?” Jason pulls his helmet over his head again.

“Completely.” It’s a sigh that escapes Dick’s lips. He doesn’t want to let go, even for a second. It’s so juvenile. Yet there’s something about how he’s felt about Jason—something that bears only a cursory resemblance to contentment with another person as Dick knows it.

“Well there goes my plans for bringing you out here and getting to third base again.”

“Ha, so you do have ulterior motives.” Dick unlocks his arms and slides off of the side. Jason follows, that alpha wolf smile on his lips.

“You know me, Dickybird. Nothing ever comes for free. Speaking of which…” Jason seizes Dick by the sides of his button up and pulls him close. Lips crash together like the meeting of some great thunderhead cloud, surging with electricity. Jason slides his tongue into Dick’s mouth as if he’s afraid that time is out to get them. It’s rough and aggressive; dominant, and Dick loves every delicious second of it.

His fingers curl in Jason’s dark hair as the other man backs him against a sturdy oak behind them. Dick hits the trunk of the tree with a grunt; Jason takes that as a sign to plume the depths of Dick’s mouth with his searching tongue. Dick groans; his legs start to lose their strength. Jason works a knee between Dick’s thighs. The aching hardness in Dick’s dress pants goes full steel so fast that he’s surprised he doesn’t pop a button.

Jason chuckles, the sound and warmth echoing in Dick’s mouth. He breaks apart, his eyes full of danger and delight at having taken such sudden advantage.

“Tasty.” Jason wipes his lips on the back of his hand. “Makes me all antsy for the main course.”

Dick finds the breath to laugh; he knows his face is red as the sun out over the sea; knows that his hard-on is not only apparently obvious, but also probably goading Jason like the fruit of Tantalus. But he doesn’t care. This, this brash, brazen need to be with Jason is like a trapeze with no net. There’s no cares, no reputation to live up to.

Just him and Jason and what they can get from each other.

“Out here?” Dick tries to play coy, even as Jason cranes his neck and starts attacking Dick’s throat with his lips and teeth. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’re not against public displays of affection?”

Jason laughs into Dick’s neck. He slides a hand into the unbuttoned line of Dick’s shirt, his calloused fingers seeking out Dick’s nipple. “This isn’t really a public display of affection,” Jason growls. “More like a public display of erection.” His other hand cups Dick through his pants, and Dick ruts into it.

His legs give out from the joint sensation of Jason tweaking his nipple, nibbling on his throat and squeezing his cock through his slacks. With almost imperceptible grace, Jason catches Dick under the arm, but he doesn’t help him right himself. Instead, he guides Dick until they’re both on the ground, Dick nestled between the gnarled roots of the ancient tree, Jason over top of him like a wily fox cornering a rabbit.

Jason makes a show of breathing in Dick’s smell as he dips his head back to Dick’s neck. “Think about me since that night?”

“Uh-huh.” It’s all Dick can manage to say. Jason slowly pops the rest of Dick’s buttons, spreading his shirt open and looking with evident lust at the corded, wiry muscle of Dick’s bare chest.

Jason traces the contours of Dick’s pecs down to his abs and then over the bulge in his pants. “You jerk off thinking about me, Dickybird?” His fingers ghost down, caressing the inside of Dick’s thigh and then working back up and under in a spiderish dance that ends with Jason cupping Dick’s ass.

“F-fuck!” The back of Dick’s head bumps against a knot in the trees roots, but the pain is minute compared to the ache in his body.

“Answer the question.” Jason’s exploring Dick’s throat again, working his way down to Dick’s chest. He nips at Dick’s nipple, and then hides the pain with a swirl of his tongue. “You think about that night while stroking that big, beautiful cock? ‘Cause I sure have, Dick. Not a night goes by when I don’t.”

Images of Jason peeling his foreskin back over the pretty pink rose of his cockhead flash through Dick’s mind. Dick grinds up into the hand now resting over his own hardness. “Yes!” It’s a strangled whisper, one that earns him another devouring grin from Jason.

Then the other man’s mouth is everywhere, sucking at Dick’s nipples, peppering kisses and licks down his chest. He wraps his lips around the lump in Dick’s pants, sucking on him through designer fabric. Dick stares down at the exquisite sight of Jason blowing him through his slacks. He could easily take control of this—could take Jason’s hair in his hands, push him off and take him any way he chooses.

Only he doesn’t want too. He made the play on that once-lonely rainy night. It was desperate, all abandoned and yearning. And while it’s been the subject of his every jerk off fantasy for the last several weeks, it’s always played differently in his mind’s eye, because Jason is the one in charge.

Dick wants to surrender to Jason, and he doesn’t know why. But he’s not a psychologist, and he’ll be damned if he’ll give up on the feeling of Jason undoing the button and zipper of his pants and pulling them down to Dick’s ankles to figure it out.

Jason growls again when he sees the dark blue jockstrap that’s doing a piss poor job at keeping Dick’s prodigious length concealed at the moment. “Fuck, Dick.” He skims the tips of his index and middle finger under the pouch of fabric that’s barely shielding Dick’s naked want from view. “You wear these in your civvies too?”

“Yeah.” Dick’s surprised that he still has air to breath. “Don’t you?”

Jason smirks. “Wanna find out?”

“Fuck yes.”

The wolf grin comes back. Jason shrugs his dark denim jacket off, showing off his strong, corded arms. He’s only in a wife beater and leather pants, but Dick thinks that Jason could walk around in a bee keeper’s suit and he’d still manage to exude effortless sensual energy.

Dick wants them to be bared to each other; wants to see Jason’s naked body again. That night in Dick’s bedroom wasn’t enough; he didn’t get enough time to drink in the sight of Jason’s exposed skin, even if he drank in other things far more intimate.

But Jason, in that endearingly, infuriatingly anti-authoritarian way of his, defies Dick’s expectations. He doesn’t strip down, but he does something even better. He dives for Dick’s groin, his lips capturing the barely-concealed length of Dick’s cock. Jason sucks through the fabric of Dick’s jockstrap, and Dick, mindless from ecstasy, thrusts his hips, trying to push more of himself into the pleasure cage of Jason’s mouth. Jason’s tongue snakes around the stretched constraints of the fabric, lapping at the side of Dick’s cock.

Dick squirms from the sensation. “Jay, please,” he breathes. “Please.”

Jason laughs, mouth still around Dick; the vibration only serves to ignite almost every erogenous zone in Dick’s body. He feels he could cry from this, from the hot need to have Jason’s mouth around his bare skin.

It’s at this crucial junction between completely surrendering and getting what he wants, that Dick hears it: a distant rumble, not of thunder, but of some powerful vehicle moving down the gravel road near the secluded bluff.

The approach of the car gets louder and louder. Dick can hear people laughing and talking—evidently he and Jason aren’t the only ones who think this spot is special. And even if it’s impossible to get access from the hiking road, the last thing Dick wants is to be seen getting a blowjob in public.

“C’mon.” Dick regretfully prods Jason away from his crotch, but Jason only deepens his attention to Dick’s length. “Jay, let’s go. There’s people coming, man.” Jason growls, and as good as it feels, the fear of discovery has already taken the venom of out Dick’s hard need. Jason clearly doesn’t want to give, and for a moment Dick is seized by a vivid memory that he buried long ago, one that makes him grasp Jason by the shoulders and practically shove him off.

Jason lands square on his leather-covered ass. The hum of a car motor sounds several hundred yards off, separated only by the thick cover of trees. If looks could kill, Dick’s fairly certain that, not only would he be dead ten times over at the scowl on Jason’s face, but he’d be cremated at this point.

But it can’t be helped. Not everyone in the world is so accepting of something like what Dick and Jason have. Besides, Dick might be experimental when it comes to sex, but flagrant exhibitionism is really on the bottom of his list of things he’s jonesing to try.

Ignoring the dark look on Jason’s face, Dick gets to his feet and hikes his slacks up.

“Guess all that public displays of erection thing really ain’t up your alley, is it, Dickybird?”

Dick rolls his eyes. “I’ll respect that you’re not sounding as sulky as I thought you were. And it isn’t so much the public thing as it is the people of the public.” He holds up a finger in the midst of buttoning up his shirt. Jason listens for a second, and, sure enough, loud, boisterous laughter and vapid chatter break the silence. Clearly the visitors are of the Greek system at Gotham U.

“I could run circles around those frat-asses,” Jason grumbles.

“Not with my cock in your mouth, you couldn’t.” Dick is surprised at the heat that he sees creep into Jason’s cheeks. “You blushing, Jaybird?”

“No!” It’s the tone of voice that ornery, pre-teen Jason would have used when being reprimanded by Batman. For some reason it only makes the once and former Robin all the more endearing.

Dick closes the space between them, grips Jason by the front of his wife beater, and pulls him in for a resounding kiss. His other hand slides down Jason’s thigh, around his leg and to his ass. “I’m not shy about going buck ass in public,” Dick murmurs between the fervent wrestle of their lips. They break apart, and he’s pleased to see the annoyance in Jason’s icy eyes has all but disappeared. “Hell, I pretty much feel naked in that damn costume anyway.”

Another noise like a growl escapes Jason’s lips. Dick smirks, pleased that he’s got this power of Jason. “Thinking about it, huh, Jaybird? Thinking about how that suit clings to every part of me?”

“Unless you want me to throw you down on the ground and fuck you right here regardless of who might be watching, I suggest you shut your trap.”

Dick smirks and swaggers over to Jason’s bike. He’s rarely gotten the upper hand on Jason whenever they’ve tried to spar verbally—mostly because nothing is off-limits for Jason, and Dick still likes to keep certain boundaries open. But he feels like he’s scored a victory with getting Jason all hot and bothered.

He swings a leg over the seat of Jason’s bike and waits for Jason to climb astride too. The other man hesitates, just long enough for Dick to give him a questioning look. Jason’s picked up his dusty, dark denim jacket, and he’s staring at Dick with that raw, naked hunger again. It’s predatory, and there’s something only just a millimeter too wanting in it. Dick realizes that Jason could just be messed up enough to have ignored his protests by the roots of that tree—and he almost did, too.

Then the moment is over, and Jason is prowling to his motorcycle. He pauses by the wheel, stoops and picks up something Dick can’t see—probably a rock or who knows what.

“Know how you said you jacked off thinking ‘bout me?” Jason’s sitting in front of him, master of the machine that’s going to carry them hopefully back to Wayne Manor and a cold shower.

Dick swallows, but can’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around Jason’s waist again as Jason guns the motor.

“Don’t you fucking dare do it tonight, Dickybird. You and me, on the rooftops tonight, you got it? I want a taste of all that hot jizz you got boiling in you right now.”

And with that, they roar away from the green trees and the ocean which, at that moment, isn’t anywhere near as blue as Dick’s balls are.

* * *

 

Sweltering heat rises from the streets of Gotham City. The smell of baking asphalt and a million cars—of heaping garbage and pollution; of dreams dying as soon as they’re born.

Dick leaps from rooftop to rooftop, carefree as a bird, relishing the chance to once again be free of the walls of Wayne Manor. The skyline is his playground, but the free run from concrete tree to brick mountain isn’t as freeing as it usually is to him. His mind and body and something more have been screaming out for Jason since the other man dropped him off that afternoon.

And after their interrupted tryst by the bluff—after Jason’s filthy sweet words and sinful tongue nearly drove Dick to the brink—all Dick wants is to find Jason and pick up where they left off.

Sometimes, in weaker moments since that night when they clutched each other on top of the cathedral in Midtown, Dick finds himself wondering just what the blue blazes he’s doing. He tries, as he did that night, to tell himself that this is Jason-motherfucking-Todd. Jason, whose bruised and beaten not only Dick’s body but the body of the other Robin’s, including Damian.

Hell, he did far worse to Damian. Then again, the spawn of Wayne and al’Ghul wasn’t exactly an innocent flower. Dick knows it’s completely myopic—that he’s possibly blinded by the unexpected buoy he’s found in Jason Todd. But he’s so damn tired of having to do right—to be the goody two-shoes former Boy Wonder, when all he wants to do is what he feels to do.

He’s in the heart of Gotham, surrounded by the rain forest of industry and urban decay, when he finally catches sight of the prize he’s sought all night. There’s no mistaking the near-blood color of Jason’s bike, or that roar like a heavy metal lullaby.

Smirking, Dick vaults up the side of some bank or other, and begins to chase Jason through the streets. The bike’s cycloptic headlight cuts through the night, illuminating the alley he turns down several hundred yards below Dick like some mechanical will-o-wisp. There’s weird kind of thrill in Dick’s chest as he follows that light—like the rush that comes with letting go of a beam or bar a hundred feet above the ground. He springs between buildings, and then, just as he’s sure he’s right over top, the light goes out and the engine noise ceases.

Dick stops, frowning. He hones his senses, searching for some sign of approach or, Heaven forbid, trouble. Gotham is a rat’s nest of scum—there’s no telling what any of its many gangs would do to someone driving through an alley, even if that someone could shoot them point blank in the face and not bat an eyelash.

He waits, straining his ears. He left his commlink in the Cave—not because he’s in the mood to be that careless, but because he doesn’t want to be interrupted again, least of all by Bruce or Alfred. Through the night vision in his mask’s lenses, he scours the filthy alleys below—there’s nothing but dumpsters and bags of garbage split open, the discarded filth of weeks spewing onto the grimy concrete to sweat in the night heat.

But no motorcycle; no Jason.

It takes a split-second for Dick to begin to feel worried.

Then someone with strong arms grabs him around the middle and hauls him back away from the ledge of the building.

Years of instinct nearly make him back-kick his assailant where the sun don’t shine. But the fact that the person is chuckling, and then pressing very familiar lips to his throat deadens the response—something Dick is dimly aware that would send Bruce into anaphylactic shock if he knew about it.

Jason’s lips brush against Dick’s ear. “Gotcha,” he murmurs, his teeth nipping at the flesh of Dick’s lobe.

“Damn,” Dick sighs. He feels fan-fucking-tastic like this, pressed against Jason’s body, Jason’s hands roaming over the front of his Nightwing costume while his breath tickles the sides of his face. “I guess I’m losing my edge in my old age.”

“Speaking of edge,” Jason says. “Have you been good today, Dickybird?”

“ ‘Course, Jaybird.” Jason’s hand slides over Dick’s groin; Dick arches his neck back, feeling too damn overdressed.

Jason chuckles. “Really does feel like a second skin, huh? Too bad it covers all the goods. Gonna have to do something about that.” Then Jason’s sliding the zipper of Dick’s costume down at the back, and Dick feels like electricity itself—untamed, destructive, but free as the air he’s breathing. Car horns blare on the streets; somewhere in the distance a siren sounds, but Dick’s beyond caring. Jason’s got the zipper down to Dick’s tailbone, and Dick entertains the thought of Jason sticking his hand down there and toying with his ass cheeks.

The thought sends a jolt to his cock. Jason growls, lips finding Dick’s as he paws at the front of his costume. He tastes good—like spit and danger and smoke.

Jason’s hands move over the skin beneath Dick’s costume, smoothing the sweat that’s accumulated there in the hot night air. Dick shudders, his gasp lost in the warmth of Jason’s mouth. Strong arms wrap around him from behind, and he waits on tenterhooks for Jason to do more, to trail his hands downwards to the hardness that longs to be touched.

But Jason just holds him, his chin resting on Dick’s shoulder. And, for the first time, Dick thinks about this as more than just sex—more than just that grasping, searching thing that they had all those weeks ago when they both found something in one another.

It’s complete madness to think that he can find something comforting in Jason’s arms; it makes him want to laugh at the same time that he wants to cry. Because of course it makes sense. It made sense to him that night. Only in the light of day had he tried his damndest to push it off as just an experimental fling. But if there’s one thing Dick Grayson is, it’s open to possibility.

Jason glides a hand to the front of Dick’s jockstrap.

“This is so fucked up, huh?” His breath is a gentle breeze against Dick’s jaw. “Betcha never thought that you would ever get with me, huh? Betcha never thought of that.”

“How much you willing to wager on that, Jaybird?”

Jason’s laugh is warm and rich and heady, like potent liquor. Then the demon that lurks in him comes forth. He withdraws those teasing hands, takes Dick by the shoulders and spins him around. Dick has a split-second glimpse of the Jason-ish grin and those impish eyes and then he’s being shoved backwards into the wall of an electric compound on the rooftop. Lust makes him laugh—after all this is an old side of Jason come out to play in their new game.

That playboy grin is back on Jason’s face—the one thing he carried over from his time as Bruce Wayne’s ward. Dick’s all too willing to stand back and let Jason take the reigns.

But when the other man grips him roughly by the shoulders and forces him to his knees, something strange happens both in Dick’s brain and in his guts.

He starts to feel an irrational dread. It tightens his throat and chest, making it hard to breathe. He realizes how exposed he is with the zipper of his costume done down to the ass; realizes just how alpha Jason is, and how much he suddenly doesn’t want to be at the other man’s mercy.

But Jason can’t see it, and he shoves Dick roughly so that he lands splay-legged on the concrete roof. Then the weight of the other man is on him, hot and hard and yearning. Jason’s leather jacket has been discarded to parts unknown, but Dick isn’t aware of that; isn’t aware that this is just the start of what could be another round of mind-blowing, soul-fixing sex.

All he’s aware of is his vision tunneling behind his mask, his heart going like a jackhammer in his ears, and how much he doesn’t want this. Even as Jason goes for his mouth again, nipping at his lips and brushing his tongue over them, Dick feels trapped. Jason’s hands slide behind him, cupping his ass and parting his costume, grasping, clawing at him. He’s suffocating, pressed to the ground and stolen of breath.

He feels what he felt that afternoon at the bluff when Jason took too long to back off: denied, ignored…used. Dick’s vision swims. He’s not under Jason anymore, he’s under someone else, someone small but strong…someone ignoring the protests that escape his lips—such feeble sounds the result of a mind that was on the verge of fraying that night. She used him, ignored him, stripped him of the very essence of masculinity and now it’s happening again because it’s too fast, too soon—too similar, with this open rooftop and its hard, scratching concrete.

Dick doesn’t know when he starts screaming; he doesn’t know when he starts kicking and bucking. All he knows is that he needs to get the weight off, to get out from under and breathe.

And Jason does something that she didn’t do—he moves. The second the weight is off him, everything becomes clear, and Dick is painfully cognizant of the fact that his costume is around his waist, that his back is pressed to the wall of the electricity house… and that there’s something burning behind his eyes.

“Dick?” There’s nothing cocky or assured in Jason’s voice anymore; no swagger or smirk. Just confusion and worry, and that alone helps Dick get a grip on himself.

He scowls, sitting up straighter and staring at his boots. Humiliation has him now—how could he let himself fall prey to something as stupid as memory? Especially when he’s never had this issue before? It’s been years since Blüdhaven.

Years since Tarantula pinned him to the roof and took advantage of his broken spirit. The fact that he’s screwed everything up with Jason because of it makes it hurt like it happened five minutes ago.

Jason sits down on the ground next to him, a chaste three feet and a ragged sigh separating them. They sit like that for a long time, staring at the sprawl around them—at the Babel towers of Gotham City that reach to the sky as if they have a chance to touching a Heaven they’ll never know.

Then…

“Who did it?”

It’s the strangest thing, but that question makes Dick smile. Maybe it’s because he’s still surprised that Jason can show such compassion; maybe it’s because he likes that that compassion is being directed at him.

“Catalina Flores,” he says, the name not spat like the venom that it should be, because she doesn’t deserve the energy it would take to do so. “Tarantula.”

“I’ll fucking kill her.”

“She’s already dead, Jason.”

“Well, then I’ll take her to a Lazarus Pit, bring her back to life and kill her again. Slowly. Maybe do a little Chinese water torture.”

Dick laughs dryly. “That sounds like something Talia would do.”

“I’ll kill her to.” Jason’s looking at him—Dick can feel the hellfire of his gaze, and Dick feels compelled to take his mask off so he can meet those scorching blue orbs. Jason’s face is set angrily, the protective rage of a wolf protecting his pack. “I’ll kill ‘em all, Dick. Anyone who fucks with Bruce or Alfred or the brat. And especially you. Deader than dead if they every hurt a hair on any of you.”

It stirs that thing in Dick that was roused that night on the top of the cathedral. He smiles, and makes to cross that invisible barrier between himself and Jason, but stops.

Jason likes to feel Dick’s skin.

Dick peels his glove off and covers Jason’s bare hand with his, savoring the warmth.

Jason’s eyes flick to his, looking like a deer in the headlights.

Dick grins. “That’s good to know, Jay. And the brat has a name.”

Jason scowls, but turns his hand all the same to thread his fingers through Dick’s. “Fine. Tim. I’d kill anyone who messes with him too…even though I…” His voice trails off; his jaw sets.

“You what?”

“I’ve hurt a lot of people,” Jason murmurs. “So damn many. If I was surprised when Bruce saved me that night and took me back…well, it’s nothing next to whatever this is.” He gestures with his free hand at Dick.

Dick sighs. “I never thought I’d feel this kind of thing with someone who wanted to shoot my brains out a few years ago.”

“People change,” Jason says, his hackles rising. “Maybe I’m one of them. Got a problem with that, Nightwing?”

“No, Red Hood,” Dick says, starting to feel slightly annoyed. “But this isn’t exactly an easy leap for me to make.”

“It was easy on the cathedral.”

That’s true enough. Because as much as he likes the idea of Jason taking control—as much as he wants to submit Jason and what he feels—as much as he wants to put the blame on the other man, Dick was the one who kissed Jason that night. Dick was the one who took him to the manor, to his bed. And Dick sure as hell isn’t going to be the one to strike the match and see it all burn away.

Warm night air caresses his skin—he’s still exposed to the waist, but he doesn’t care.

“I don’t know what this is going to become,” he finally says.

Jason scoffs, but he still doesn’t let go of Dick’s hand. “Pretty boy Grayson doesn’t have it all figured out? Wow. Color me surprised with a box of holy shit crayons.”

“You are giving me way too much credit,” Dick says, forcing himself to be calm. “Tim’s the smart one. I have about as much brains as the next schmuck in this fucking city. Only difference is, I know how to use them.”

“And you’re saying I don’t?”

“No, Jason, because if I was saying that you would have heard me. Did you? Have I ever in these past few weeks given you any reason to think that I thought you were stupid? That we were stupid?” Dick swallows, not liking how his voice is starting to shake, but he’ll be damned if he lets Jason carry on like a slighted little kid. “You came with me that night,” he continues, “in more ways than one. And you showed up at the manor and took me out to the bluffs. We both met here tonight. This, whatever it is—and trust me there is nothing I would like more right now than for it to become something—it can’t be the way it’s always been with you and the rest of the world. It can’t be a competition. I’m not trying to hurt you or mess with you, Jason.”

“Then what do you want?” It scares Dick how raw Jason’s voice is, how vulnerable he sounds.

There’s no going back at this point—he’s due to fall from that trapeze and there’s definitely no net beneath him. Memory and identity, the vestiges of all the skins he’s ever outgrown, wait with baited breath to see if he’ll fall and crack is skull open. But Dick Grayson isn’t one to let oblivion have its way, not when life is waiting for him on the other side of the circus tent.

“Would it bother you,” Dick finally says, “if I told you that I’m still not sure at the moment? I thought I was, Jay. I really did. But then this happened and…” He hangs his head, hating his pathetic vulnerability.

Jason withdraws his fingers only to sling his arm around Dick and pull him close, letting him rest his head against Jason’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Jason says, and it’s a whisper filled with such pain, such self-loathing that Dick is wondering whether or not he should be comforting Jason and not the other way around. “I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t know. Nobody knows, Jay.”

Jason arches his brows. “You mean I’m the only one who—

“What kind of man wants to go admitting that to anybody?” Dick’s teeth are clenched so hard his jaw is aching. “She…she raped me, Jason. It might not have looked like it to anyone at the time, but I didn’t want it. I told her to stop. Shouldn’t that have been enough?”

“It is,” Jason says. His arm tightens around Dick, pulling him closer so that Dick’s breath plays over Jason’s neck. “Nobody holds license to that shit, Dick. And if I’m the only person you ever breathe it too then I’ll take it to the grave and further. It just…it just fucking sucks so hard that it’ll get in the way because I really wanted you. I still fucking want you, Dickybird. I don’t know why but you got under my goddamn skin that night. You’re all I think about from the second I wake up and jack off to the second I jack off before I fall asleep. I see you everywhere, in everything. And yeah, I wanted to hate you for it for the first few days, but then I started asking myself why and I didn’t like the answers.”

This is terrifying in that it’s something good, could be something good. Dick’s lived his whole life looking over his shoulder for when the next good thing will be snatched away. Bruce would say that this is risky, among other things, but to ever-loving _fuck_ with what Bruce would say about anything. This is about Dick Grayson and Jason Todd; what they need from each other.

And from what Dick can see of the millions of lights and the reeking refuse both human and byproduct, Gotham City is still standing. People are still mugging, stabbing, shooting, stealing and raping each other to Hell, unaffected by Dick and Jason’s growing closeness, by what they did that night, by Dick getting his Johnson quasi-sucked off by his adoptive brother earlier that day.

Dick clears his throat. “What were the answers, Jason?”

“That I _am_ anger, Dick. That’s all I’ve ever known how to be. Christ, I wasn’t even away from my old lady’s tit before I started seeing red in everything.” Jason’s throat contracts; Dick feels and hears Jason’s heart beat faster. This is such a leap for him, being so open, and Dick realizes that he isn’t the only one exposing something painful and buried on this balmy, sweltering summer night.

“I thought he would help—I thought Bruce would make me better but he only made me angry because he never gave me what I wanted and needed. I just wanted a fucking family and I never got that from him.”

“And that’s not your fault,” Dick says before he can stop himself. It feels spooky to hear his own thoughts spoken by Jason like this—by the dark half of the coin that makes up the two of them. “Bruce doesn’t know how, Jason. He just doesn’t fucking get what it means to be even a pretend father figure.”

“But he’s got the others…”

“Tim’s smart,” Dick insists. “He knows how to act around people. And he isn’t exactly pinning Bruce’s picture under Dad of the Year. As for Damian…he was more of a hellfire than you were. I think Bruce only made it work because Damian was blood; he had favor in a way.”

“And now he’s gone.” Jason’s voice is bitter. “He’s gone, and it’s so fucked up, but I just want to fill that space. For Bruce.” He looks down at Dick, a funny look on his face, as if he can’t decide whether he’s really seeing Dick or not. “But I want you more. I want you, Dick, and it pissed me off something awful when I figured that out, but…” He sits up; Dick tries not to be annoyed that he’s lost the resting place of Jason’s shoulder, but he’s too drawn by curiosity at watching Jason dig in the pocket of his jacket for something.

A second later, he’s passing Dick a rock the size of a golf-ball; smooth, ruddy and curiously shaped, it looks like a heart at first glance. But two points at the edges make it look also like two birds facing away from each other, connected at the coalescing wings.

“Found it at the bluff today,” Jason says with a shrug. “Thought it was, I dunno, kinda cool.”

Dick holds the rock in his palm. He’s used to grand gestures of gifts from Bruce and Tim and Barbara. He’s had Rolex watches and classic muscle cars waiting for him on birthdays and Christmases past.

This, though…Jason Todd, black sheep of the Bat family and one-time raging sociopath, is giving him something out of kindness.

Dick has had many relationships in the past. He’s familiar with the firefly glow of something like love. And as he stares at Jason, who’s regarding Dick as if daring him to throw the little rock back in his face, the idea that it could be love that he’s feeling overwhelms him. His fingers curl around the rock. He throws his arms around Jason’s neck, upsetting the other man’s balance. They fall to the concrete, kissing as if it’s the only thing keeping them grounded. Their limbs tangle, struggling to find some kind of give.

Jason breaks apart and looks Dick in the eye. Both men are breathless, flushed. Dick sees his own naked desire in Jason’s eyes. Jason grips Dick by his sculpted biceps, uncertainty eclipsing his need for a brief moment.

“Can I?” And it’s because Jason’s asking, because he wants Dick to say that it’s okay to let him take control, to let Dick be pinned underneath him, that Dick feels his heart explode in a supernova of emotion. He wants to cry and laugh and scream and kiss Jason into nothingness all at once.

But all he can muster is a nod and a small smile.

Jason brushes the pad of his thumb over Dick’s lips. “Not here,” he says. “Home.”

Dick’s smile broadens; he dips down and captures Jason’s lips again. “Where’s home, Jaybird?”

“Anywhere. With you.”

* * *

 

It’s that rain swept night all over again, except this time the air is heavy with the heat of an Indian summer, and it’s not Nightwing’s bike that Dick and Jason are tearing down the streets on—it’s Jason’s. And instead of the Rockwell homes and pristine greenery of Uptown, they drive down to the belly of the beast: The Narrows, that island between islands that floats like a discarded limb in its own blood.

Jason tenses as the buildings get more rundown; as the late-night shoppers and partiers turn to shady citizens in hoodies and whores selling their fleshly wares. Dick can tell that Jason’s ashamed to be showing him this part of his life. It makes him hang on all the more tightly, trying to reaffirm through the pressure of his fingers and the press of his chest against Jason’s back.

The bike is parked in what Dick recognizes to be an old safe house. Jason discards the Red Hood, but doesn’t look at Dick as they hurry through the night to an old townhouse that looks more rundown than a warzone after a wildebeest stampede. Loud music, shrill screaming and shattering glass write an orchestra of human suffering as Jason and Dick ascend creaky stairs to a suite on the fourth floor.

Dick sees red in the literal sense—the neon light of a hotel abutting the tenement building diffuses the shadows like the grin of a maniac, and it startles Dick motionless for a second. Not just the perpetual light, which itself explains the permanent, sleepless shadow under Jason’s icy eyes, but the entire apartment: from the third hand furnishings to the peeling wallpaper to the lingering odor of stale beer.

“I’d like to say that it’s not much and that it’s home,” Jason says as he strides passed Dick to the nook near the window where a mattress is pressed against the low sill, “but it isn’t much. And I’ve camped out in a garbage dumpster and felt more at home than in this shithole.” A line of bourbon and beer bottles stands on the sill above Jason’s bed, and there are bullet casings on the nightstand beside the mattress.

His back to Dick, Jason shrugs out of his jacket. His shirt is peeled off his skin, and only then does he turn around, his arms folded, a look so guarded on his face that it takes Dick’s breath away. Jason’s daring him to laugh, daring him to pity.

“Would you hate me if I told you that I think it sucks you have to live like this?”

Jason sighs. “A few months ago, yeah.”

“A few months ago you’d have shot me in the nuts before you let me get this close.”

“And now all I wanna do is suck on ‘em.”

“That a cue, Jaybird?”

“If it ain’t enough, how’s this then?” Jason sticks his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and slides them down his legs. Dick feels himself growl, eyes following every line of Jason’s body—from the flat strength of his pecs and abs to the scars that mark his flesh.

Jason’s got the confidence of a stripper as he pulls his jockstrap off, his eyes holding Dick’s like gravity itself. Dick’s nostrils flare—Jason’s fully exposed to him, his arousal on proud, prominent display like a salute.

Dick isn’t aware that he’s been struck dumb by the raw sexuality rolling off Jason. Not until Jason’s crossing the room with a quiet, frustrated scoff and undoing the zip of Dick’s costume for the second time that night—not until he feels Jason’s hardness pressed against his groin.

They’re naked and on top of the sheets in the blink of an eye. Jason has Dick on his front, the better for Dick to rut into the sheets that he knows are already stained from every time Jason’s ever jerked off on them. The weight of Jason behind Dick is both immense and diffuse, as if he’s made of some intangible thought.

Knowing Jason the way Dick knows him, Dick expects something rough and sudden—expects to feel burning, exquisite pain as Jason enters him with one dry, savage thrust.

But Jason is full of surprises—Dick realizes that he’s also surprised himself: this thing that he’s found with Jason, this thing like love…it’s reckless, dangerous, driven by the kind of impulses that Bruce has tried to drill out of everything he likes to think he controls. But Dick isn’t under the Shadow of the Bat, not now, and he knows, as Jason arches down to kiss him on the shoulder, that he’ll never let himself be under the influence of anything that will deny him this.

Jason’s kiss on Dick’s bare, broad shoulder is soft, lingering, so gentle that it nearly brings tears to Dick’s eyes: he’s never thought Jason Todd capable of a gesture so loving. Scorching kisses brand Dick’s skin as Jason makes his way inch by delicate inch down Dick’s body—from his shoulders to the back of his neck, down his spine to the small of his back. Jason brands the supple globe of Dick’s ass cheek with a feather-light brush of lips that feel like fire.

Dick gasps and grinds his own hardness into the sheets beneath him. He feels he could go blind from his want. He’s afraid for his very soul on account of the things he finds himself wanting Jason to do to him.

Again, Jason completely surprises him by sitting back on his legs, smoothing slow, sensuous circles over Dick’s ass. Dick casts a backwards glance, his eyes drawn, at first, to the sight of Jason’s cock, foreskin pulled back to reveal the red red head of it.

And, in spite of himself, Dick smirks a little. “Red Hood in more ways than one, huh?”

Jason returns his smile, reaching in the open drawer of his nightstand for a bottle of lube and—again to Dick’s astonishment—a condom. “And just as hard as the helmet,” he says. Dick licks his lips as Jason dribbles lube over his length, coating the entire rigid tumescence of it with a series of drawn out strokes.

Then Jason’s crawling up again, tracing the inside of Dick’s ass cheek with fingers coated in the cool, slick lubricant. Dick holds his breath—he’s played with that part of his body enough times to be ready for the stretch of Jason’s fingers breaching his most intimate of intimates.

But Jason’s still methodical, careful—gentle. He’s doing this for Dick’s satisfaction as much as he’s doing it for himself. Since the night Bruce took Jason home, bandaged and broken, Dick has to contend with searching his own soul for forgiveness and understanding of the other one-time Robin. And since that night on the cathedral rooftop, Dick’s felt as if he’s lost belief in a bad faith—one that kept him clinging to an animosity that grew from what Jason used to be.

Jason isn’t that anymore, not unless his careful ministrations are part of some elaborate prank.

Dick groans at the feeling of being so stretched; two of Jason’s fingers caress the insides of his channel, making him grind his hips even harder into the mattress until he’s sure he’s going to tear a hole into it.

Jason withdraws his probing digits with slow regard. Dick, already breathless, looks back; Jason is staring at him, his snowy scarred skin painted red from the glow of the scarlet neon sign across the street. The effect should be intimidating, disturbing—but for some reason the red caste makes Jason seem more real, adds a flush to him that is anything but bloody. All Dick can think of is life, how it flows through Jason, how he seems to be filled with a new appreciation of it.

And it clicks then—the sensitivity, the understanding. It’s been there all along, but so buried under trauma and pain, the way Dick’s tried to bury his own. Only Dick stifled the ugly with bravado and wit—Jason, in many ways, was more honest. And now, bared to each other like this, Dick gets the sense that each is seeing the other for what they really are.

Which is nothing like Bruce. Because Bruce isn’t alive in his own skin, and Dick Grayson and Jason Todd are.

Perhaps Jason comes to the same conclusion; then again, maybe he’s thinking something entirely different. A tremor passes through him; he grips Dick by the hips and rolls him over. Dick barely has time to register the change in position before Jason hauls him up so that they’re sitting face to face.

He doesn’t want Dick to be beneath him; he knows that Dick being below only brings up memories of Tarantula. He wants to look Dick in the eye, and that alone makes Dick’s throat tighten.

Moving with the body language that comes from being wrapped round with passion, Dick leans back ever so slightly, the better for Jason to cup his ass with both hands and lift him into his lap.

He feels the hot heat of Jason’s glistening glans poised to breach him.

The already airless room grows even more devoid of oxygen. Jason’s eyes pull Dick in, all unsure and hesitant even though he’s the dominating one. “Have you ever…?” Jason clears his throat—he’s nervous, and the fact that he’s actually asking only cements in Dick’s brain the fact that he’s dealing with an entirely different Jason Todd than the one he’s fought with for so many years.

Dick shakes his head, but slowly lowers himself onto Jason’s steely length. He grits his teeth because, in spite of what the kinds of romance novels that Barbara and Tim have devoured for years might say to the contrary, it does hurt. But it doesn’t hurt as much as it would, and maybe it’s because Jason prepped Dick thoroughly; but it may also be because Dick trusts Jason enough to relax himself; to let Jason in on every level.

He wraps his arms around Jason’s neck, pressing his cheek against the other man’s. They both shudder from the weight of sensation as Jason ticks Dick to the hilt. Then, filled, Dick sits there, quivering, pressing lazy half-kisses to Jason’s cheek.

“N-never,” he finally groans out.

Jason seems stunned. “Then why—

“ ‘Cause…” Dick lifts his head, knowing just how languid and dopey his grin must look, “Guess I was just waiting for the right guy to come along.”

Jason smirks, kisses Dick and starts rocking in and out of Dick’s body. “So…never?”

“Not never…some—umph—some times there were—mmph—other guys…the Titans and some guys from school…” Those times were just the fumblings of hormonal teenagers and young men: hand jobs, the odd blowjob. This, though…it’s more pure than anything relating to simple chemical brain and bodily reactions.

Dick clings to Jason, kissing him as he rides him. Jason thrusts forward in counterpoint to Dick’s rhythm. Their lips go raw from the fervor of kissing, from Jason’s frequent nips. Dick finds he likes it when Jason bites at him—it, like the slow burn pleasure-pain of having Jason sheathed balls deep in him—is excruciatingly beautiful. Sweat slicks their skin; Jason wraps one strong arm around Dick’s back and snakes his free hand between them to access Dick’s slick cock.

In the wake of everything falling to pieces since Damian’s murder this may be the best thing Dick’s ever known and felt. Hell, in the wake of his having donned the mantle of Robin all those years ago, this is the closest he’s ever felt to another human being.

And of course it’s with Jason, because he and Jason aren’t just joined physically and through circumstance—they practically _are_ synchronicity: the same soul in two bodies. Dick remembers hearing some old legend about gods splitting the creatures that mankind used to be into two separate beings; about how finding that missing piece completes that split soul. Now, with Jason holding him so tight and brushing against that bundle of nerves deep inside his ass, he can well believe that legend to be true.

Heat coils inside Dick’s body. Jason is barely hanging onto him, but they’re still upright, blue eyes never once leaving blue eyes in spite of the onslaught of feeling both physical and otherwise.

Jason growls and bites down on the skin of Dick’s neck. “Gonna come,” he says, tongue laving at Dick’s skin.

“Yes.” The whisper leaves Dick’s mouth as he holds onto Jason for all he’s worth, needing this more than he’s needed anything in his entire life: more than justice or home or salvation.

A shock of pain ratchets up the side of Dick’s neck: Jason’s teeth sink into Dick’s skin, drawing blood as Jason comes. Dick can almost feel the surging pulse of Jason’s cock inside of him. He arches his head back, feeling the sting as Jason laps at the puncture marks like a hungry vampire. Riding the high of the feeling, Dick is only dimly aware of Jason’s hand closing over his own length. Dick gasps, opening his eyes and staring at Jason’s lust-hazed face as the other man jerks him off, still pulsing inside of him in the aftershocks of his orgasm.

“Come for me, Richard.” It’s an order, a rippling purr that sends shivers all over Dick’s body. He cries out, throwing his weight forward so that he collapses on top of Jason, pinning him to the mattress as he coats the space between them in hot, sticky ropes of his own seed. Jason tugs at Dick’s cock, milking him dry until he can’t bear the feeling of fingers curling over his too-sensitive cockhead.

As the white-hot pleasure subsides, Dick feels Jason slip out of him. Dick rolls over onto his back, chest heaving from the force of his orgasm. Jason peels the filled condom off, ties it and tosses it into the garbage bin at the foot of the bed.

Thus far, Jason’s been the one in control, but now, in the lull of their afterglow, Jason’s curls into Dick’s side as if in fear of the shadows and that bloody red glow from the neon sign.

For the second time in weeks Dick inhales the tangy scent of their mingled cum. Jason snuggles closer, tucking his head under Dick’s chin and Dick impulsively kisses Jason’s raven locks. His arms wrap around Jason: he doesn’t know when the ballast shifted, but he doesn’t care. He’ll protect Jason from Satan himself if it comes down to it.

Their hearts beat together; their breaths, shallow and panting in the wake of their lovemaking, fill the room with the sound of an ocean tide.

Dick combs his fingers through Jason’s hair, staring through half-lidded eyes at the shadowy ceiling still stained crimson by the neon lights.

“So is this it, then?” Jason’s voice is rough, as if he’s afraid that he’ll shatter the moment by speaking and doesn’t want to admit it.

“Is this what?”

“Y’know…love, I guess.” Even though they’re pressed so close, Jason’s doing his best to avoid Dick’s eyes. He’s not used to this, Dick realizes. They both wanted it, yes, but Jason still doesn’t quite understand things that don’t involve hitting or screaming or killing.

Dick sighs, and instead of answering, he looks down at Jason’s body. There’s a long scar going from just under his shoulder to his hip. Absently, Dick traces the scar with the bad of his thumb. “Never noticed this before,” he murmurs. “Was it, uh…one of mine?”

“Hate to break this to you Dick, but you can’t lay claim to everything on my body.” Jason grins, all discomfiture forgotten for the time being. This is a language that he understands—scars and blood and history. He covers the hand tracing over the scar with his own. “I wiped out on the bike a few years after the Pit. Had to crawl away from it and get myself stitched up. It healed over pretty damn good though.” He grins. “Right along with the rest of me, huh?”

Dick nods. “Yeah. We’re pretty good at that, humans. No matter how banged up we get, we can put everything back together and keep going.”

There’s a heavy pause following Dick’s profundity. Then they both burst out laughing. “That something Alfred told you?"

“Leslie, actually.”

Jason sighs. “Guess she knows better than anybody, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Jason hefts another breath. Then he’s crawling out of Dick’s embrace and out of the bed. And, as much as he hates to admit it, Dick starts to panic. He braces himself on his elbows, watching as Jason pads across the floor. “Uh…where you off to?” He tries not to sound like he’s worried that Jason’s pulling a disappearing act. He doesn’t want to come off that damn desperate, but it can’t be helped.

This is the best anything he’s ever felt, and he doesn’t want it to end the way it did all those weeks before, with morning light showing him empty, stained sheets.

Jason chuckles. “To take a leak and have a shower. Wondering if you wanted to join me. Uh, for the last bit, not the taking a piss part.”

Shadows and red light play against Jason’s naked body. He looks back over his shoulder, that cocky, wolfish grin on his face. He looks like a Roman god carved from bloody marble. But again, Dick isn’t put in mind of violence or darkness or anything that really should describe Jason Todd—all he thinks of is how alive Jason looks, how flushed his bare skin is in the bloody light of the neon sign.

Dick grins, crawls off the mattress and follows Jason across the room. “Abso-fucking-lutely.” His eye catches the smooth, half-heart half-robin shaped stone on the nightstand—the one that Jason picked up on the bluff. Dick palms it, and stares at its perfect shape—at the reddish hue of it.

He feels the heat of Jason’s gaze on him, and looks up into the other man’s eyes. Jason seems like he’s standing on a live mine, as if terrified that Dick is holding his life in his hands. In a way, Dick knows that he is—Jason didn’t even have to ask, he realizes, because he wouldn’t have given Dick this small token of affection if he didn’t feel something other than a physical pull. Jason wouldn’t have tried to comfort him after finding out the kind of crime Tarantula had committed against him.

Carefully, Dick puts the stone back on the nightstand and closes the distance between himself and Jason.

“Feels good in here, doesn’t it?” He places his hand over Jason’s heart, and Jason nods, still looking like he’s got dynamite under his ass. He takes Jason by the wrist and puts the other man’s hand over his own chest. “That’s what it feels like for me too, Jay.”

Jason nods. It’s a quiet moment, one that Dick knows isn’t going to last.

Sure enough, Jason drops his hand and turns around—not that Dick’s going to complain, because he gets a view of Jason’s perfect posterior. “Uh,” Jason says, “you wanna stay the night?”

“Hell yeah.”

And, if time allows, he’ll stay a lot longer afterwards.


End file.
